I moved to Eugene, OR in July of 2014 as a way of escaping the high rents in San Jose, CA. I was living in a trash filled mobile home for $400 per month, but I wanted my own, much cleaner place for about the same price and I found it in Eugene. I worked on trying to pass Measure 92 which would have required GMO foods in Oregon to be labeled. I am currently one of the co-chairs of the Lane County Chapter of the Pacific Green Party. Until Sept 28th, 2017 I was operating a small retail store called Peacestickers(dot)net, where I sold my political bumper stickers and t-shirts as well as fair trade crafts from around the world. I still have the web site and people are welcome to order stuff from me by sending a check made out to Peacestickers(dot)net to the PO Box listed on the web site.

Por qué estoy en Couchsurfing

I'm trying out couchsurfing as an experiment to test the waters in Eugene to see if people looking for a temporary place to crash who are not verified and who don't have a specific travel plan can get hooked up with hosts on this site. I had some very informative and moving experiences having homeless people and so called street travelers visit with me at my store during the summer when I had cooling center dates advertised. Even though some of the people who visited my store admitted to various forms of mental illness and drug use, none of them displayed outward signs of antisocial or destructive behaviour. Plus, listening to groups of two or more of them talk, I found that they were very well informed and culturally literate, far beyond what I could relate to them from my own personal experiences. I really think that these people, if they were invited into people's homes for a day to a week, would provide the hosts with more than enough of a cross-cultural experience, simillar to having a foreign tourist visit, to make it more than worthwhile for the hosts to have them in their spaces for a short while. So if it works out for me to stay with someone overnight in Eugene, I will be sure to pass the word around to see if some homeless/travelers would like to explore the opportunity presented by this web site. Thank you.

Intereses

• activism
• social activism

Música, películas y libros

I like Science Fiction books and movies, though I tend to stay away from the more extremely violent movies such as the latest Star Trek movies shown in theaters. I do tolerate the violence shown in Heroes Season 1 though. I like the classic rock and pop from the 60's 70's and 80's, such as the Beatles and Olivia Newton John.

Algo increíble que he hecho

I found this web site. It took a lot of thought and some changing of my heart and mind before I searched for a couchsurfing app as a possible solution for how to get homeless people in Eugene off the streets by the time winter rolls around. All this without the city of Eugene having to invest one dime or take more than one month to roll out a new program to help the homeless. Even if this particular web site doesn't work as planned, there is already enough data presented here to suggest that constructing a simillar app for homeless people would be a great idea. On this site there are over 4000 hosts in Eugene and only two profiles of people looking to crash in Eugene show up in my current news feed from the site. That represents a sky-high wide open opportunity.

Enseña, aprende, comparte

I'm looking to learn what people's hopes and fears are regarding the homeless. Do they fear that the vast majority of homeless are destructively mentally ill or drug addicted and will just 'spaz out' in their home or steal from them if they invite them in? I can tell you from my own experiences and the experiences of people who help the homeless at places such as White Bird and Occupy Medical that the homeless population in Eugene is by and large a very well behaved and even well educated and informed group of people.

Qué puedo ofrecer a los anfitriones

I can tell them about alternative media sources available on the Internet and that the Russians are not our enemy.

Países que he visitado

Japan, Mexico